There are four venomous snakes that reside in Tennessee and these are quite shy and will really do everything possible to stay clear of you, although some will not believe that. Inquire at your local office of your
University of Tennessee Cooperative Extension Service, Natural History Museum, a college, or high school, department of biology, about what snake you might have had.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tennessees venomous snakes

Without a picture, you'll need to do a better job of describing it. Black with clearly defined rings or dark with yellow ring-like splotches? Could it have been gray or brown? Was the head yellow or black?

Over in the Nature.net side of GardenWeb there is a Reptile and Amphibian forum where some excellent experts hang out. A great forum to visit with your question.

You are right about the four venomous snakes found in your part of the country. Learn to recognize those as adults and juveniles and you'll gain confidence .....no need to check out the pupils of a black snake with yellow rings, for example.

But making an effort to become familiar with lots of your native snakes can only increase your comfort level as well as your enjoyment of your environment. You might be interested in visiting a local bookstore in search of a field guide, I highly recommend both the Audubon Field Guide to North American Reptiles and Amphibians and the Peterson field guide, too.

Thanks, I will look over in the reptile section. I don't know how I missed that.

As far as more details, all I can say for certain is that the coloring was the same as a ribbon (garter) snake. Except that instead of strips it had rings. In hind sight, I can't say for sure that they were perfect rings or more like the chaining circles, I just know that I saw yellow circles down the body. His head was black, or at least the top was. Maybe it had a touch of yellow on the mouth area, but being that I have always been terrified of snakes, I wasn't interested in eye to eye contact. ;-) the water may have slightly altered the intensity of its coloring. But it did look black, not brown or gray.
I am proud of myself for just doing what I did. I have just been out in the country setting for a year now, and The first thing I did was research the poisonous snakes for this area. I did not see any of the things that I was instructed to look for. (Coloring, triangular head, bulging on the sides of the head, elliptical eyes- which as I said I didn't look for).
I was prepared to take deadly action with my shovel, but did not want to do that unless it was dangerous. It mostly just seemed to want to escape, and since I didn't think it was one of the four (cotton mouth, copperhead, one of two rattlers) I thought it best to be kind. Besides, my son had a bearded dragon that was attached to me, and it got me over a lot of my fear of reptiles. Well, at least the lizards.
But after depositing the snake back in the woods, I thought maybe I had better know exactly what I put there. I have two boys and two small dogs. I would not want any of them to be in danger.
Then again, I am perfectly happy with the snakes eating up all the mice and voles that they can consume. Most likely it was after a frog though, as they just can't seem to stay out of the pool.

Thanks, I will look over in the reptile section. I don't know how I missed that.

As far as more details, all I can say for certain is that the coloring was the same as a ribbon (garter) snake. Except that instead of strips it had rings. In hind sight, I can't say for sure that they were perfect rings or more like the chaining circles, I just know that I saw yellow circles down the body. His head was black, or at least the top was. Maybe it had a touch of yellow on the mouth area, but being that I have always been terrified of snakes, I wasn't interested in eye to eye contact. ;-) the water may have slightly altered the intensity of its coloring. But it did look black, not brown or gray.
I am proud of myself for just doing what I did. I have just been out in the country setting for a year now, and The first thing I did was research the poisonous snakes for this area. I did not see any of the things that I was instructed to look for. (Coloring, triangular head, bulging on the sides of the head, elliptical eyes- which as I said I didn't look for).
I was prepared to take deadly action with my shovel, but did not want to do that unless it was dangerous. It mostly just seemed to want to escape, and since I didn't think it was one of the four (cotton mouth, copperhead, one of two rattlers) I thought it best to be kind. Besides, my son had a bearded dragon that was attached to me, and it got me over a lot of my fear of reptiles. Well, at least the lizards.
But after depositing the snake back in the woods, I thought maybe I had better know exactly what I put there. I have two boys and two small dogs. I would not want any of them to be in danger.
Then again, I am perfectly happy with the snakes eating up all the mice and voles that they can consume. Most likely it was after a frog though, as they just can't seem to stay out of the pool.